Taxstone has had enough of Joe Budden‘s treatment of Rory & Mal, discussing it in an interview days before the two podcast personalities traded barbs in the press.
As far as Tax (real name Darryl Campbell) is concerned, Budden’s slander of his former co-hosts stems from the pair realizing that the “Pump It Up” rapper is just a “master manipulator.”
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“I think Rory and Mal finally figured out that Joe was a master manipulator,” he told to Complex in an interview published on Wednesday (April 5). “They was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and Joe manipulates everybody around him.”
And Tax didn’t stop there. According to him, Budden’s new podcast co-hosts are also suffering from undue influence — but it’s alright because they’d have nothing else without the podcast.
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“Even them dudes sitting with him now are being manipulated,” he said. “But you gotta understand some people are alright with manipulation as long as they get something out of it. So I think them dudes know that. But I think they just cool with the situation. Sometimes people don’t got nothing going on in their life. They need to be a part of something.”
If all that wasn’t enough, Taxstone also took some time to drag N.O.R.E. and Troy Ave over the coals, too.
“It’s fools like the people who interview Troy Ave. They interview him ’cause they know he’s gonna talk about me. He has nothing going on … So it’s like the podcast game when I see what was going on. Like with Nore. He was on my podcast. And then for maybe two, three months straight, we was on the phone every day, six in the morning, five in the morning, two in the morning, putting together the ideas for Drink Champs,” he said. “At first just summed it up to Nore’s looking for numbers. He don’t care. Like, he’ll sacrifice anything.”
On Saturday (April 8), just three days after Taxstone called out Joe Budden for his treatment of Rory & Mal, the former Slaughterhouse MC shared a few choice words for his former co-hosts and noted it would be wise if they kept his name out of their mouths.
During the latest episode of The Joe Budden Podcast — titled “To Whom It May Concern” — Budden referred to them — and possibly others — as the “bare minimum” boys — which is an oblique reference to Drake’s track “BackOutsideBoyz” from his and 21 Savage’s Her Loss album. Although it appears Budden was talking about Rory and Mal, he didn’t directly name names.
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“To whom this may concern,” he began. “This is not even on page one of the manual, ’cause you n-ggas ain’t in the bookstore. Instead of crtiquing people’s placement on this list, we need more crtiquing on why you’re not on it. To everyone not on it, shut the fuck up. There’s some steps that you n-ggas have missed.
“To whom it may concern, stop holding a microphone. I’m just giving out podcast advice. It’s certain n-ggas, y’all can’t speak to me, y’all didn’t do the work yet. You didn’t go to the bookstore.”
Budden added: “Hire the editors. Get people to help. Invest in the staff. Pay the staff. Get more staff. Stop check chasing. Stop doing the bare minimum and expecting that to yield results. You n-ggas are the bare minimum boys.”
Budden’s name-calling of Rory & Mal stemmed from the podcast pair calling their ex-boss a “thief” and a “cat-burglar” on Friday (April 7) in response to his ranking as Complex‘s No. 1 Hip Hop Media Personality.
“The thief!” Mal exclaimed. “The cat burglar. Big integrity … look at the cat burglar staring off into the next house he wants to run in. That’s big cat! Quiet as a mouse.”
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“I’m keeping my non-bias the way I have this entire time,” Rory interjected. “I didn’t wanna defend Adam22, nor do I wanna defend this gentleman, but he should be in the Top 5, and that’s based off what Hip Hop media is now. So I’m not sure if I’m giving a compliment right now by saying I think these people should be in the Top 5.”
